Citing Manti Te'o, NFL Scouts Are Now Using Twitter To Vet Draft Prospects

Those of us whose careers don't involve tackling people have known for a while that potential employers might comb through our Twitter and Facebook posts when deciding whether to make a job offer.

For college football players hoping to get chosen in the NFL draft, though, life was simpler. Human resources departments may care whether a candidate is well-rounded, creative and chaste, but general managers and scouts care about more concrete things: game statistics, 40-second dash time, injury history, arm length, Wonderlic score and other so-called measurables. Character evaluations have typically only mattered for players with red flags in their past -- arrest, suspensions and the like.

Blame Manti Te'o for complicating things. In remarks reported by ESPN's Kevin Seifert, Rick Spielman, general manager for the Minnesota Vikings, told reporters Thursday that he and his scouting department have "done a lot of digging on social media" this off-season in preparation for the upcoming draft, a change from their approach of years past.

"We have a pretty in-depth picture of these players who are involved or not involved in social media -- how many times they tweet or twit," he said. "I'm not a technical guy. But it's interesting to see the patterns of some of those players."

Spielman candidly acknowledged that the heightened scrutiny is "probably because of all the highlights of what happened with the Notre Dame linebacker."
What "happened" with Te'o, in case you somehow missed it, is the linebacker, according to his version of events, was the victim of a years-long hoax perpetrated in part via Facebook and revolving around a phony girlfriend.

The NFL has had a social media policy in place for several years. Among other things, it prohibits tweeting during games and criticizing officials. In general, however, the league has taken a laissez-faire approach to social platforms, and teams have mostly gone along. Now, thanks to Te'o, all the clipboard-carrying Luddites like Spielman will need to figure out what this Twitter thing is all about. And collegiate jocks with dreams of going pro will need to start watching what they tweet that much sooner.